Is Mrs. Griz playing mind games on me?

More than a few times Mrs. Griz has challenged things which I have known to be true in order to make me doubt if I had really seen what it is that I’m sure I saw.

For example, when I was truck driving across eastern Kansas, I saw a small herd of camels grazing out in the field and told her what I had seen. She just laughed and told me I was delusional after a bout with the flu because there are no camels in Kansas.

When I persisted and told her that I was absolutely sure I had seen dromedaries along the interstate, she said, “OK, I believe that you believe you saw camels.”

Well, I wasn’t quite satisfied with her confidence in my sanity but have never, to this day, gotten her to admit the truth even though we have camels living across the street from our house in Arkansas.

Anyway, on another occasion, I went into the bathroom and found the toilet paper on the holder with the end of the roll coming up over the top on the outside of the holder, away from the wall. Now, you just have to understand that she has for years insisted that the proper way to hang toilet paper is with the loose end hanging down on the inside of the roller, closest to the wall, and that she used to give me a bad time if I ever hung it the other way.

Well, finding the roll on the holder backwards, I jumped on my opportunity to holler and tell her, “Honey, you hung the toilet paper the wrong way !”

She responded, “No, I didn’t. That’s the way I’ve always hung it.” Even when I challenged her further and had her look at the roll, she insisted that she always put the paper on the roller that way and that I was the one who couldn’t remember how she did it.

Convinced that she was playing games with my mind and trying to make me think I was losing it, I asked a son. When he agreed with me, she just told me that he wouldn’t know the difference anyway. When I mentioned a daughter’s name, Mrs. Griz said that she would know.

Well, I was beginning to fear that dementia was setting in. How could I have forgotten which way my dear wife hangs the toilet paper? Was I really beginning to slip upstairs? I was a bit worried. This was more serious than seeing camels in Kansas. After all, I had seen them in another part of the state as well and knew I was right - I think.

As soon as I saw our daughter, I asked her which way her mother hung the toilet paper on the roller, being very careful not to ask the question in a suggesting or leading way so that my interrogative methodology could stand the scrutiny of a court of law. She too agreed with me; but when I confronted Mrs. Griz with the now-weighty testimony against her, she denied ever saying that her daughter would truly know but gave me the name of an old friend who would know since they used to antagonizeeach other by turning the toilet paper around when visiting each other's homes.

It didn’t take long and the opportunity came up. While at the post office, in walked the friend whose name Mrs. Griz had mentioned with the assurance that her testimony would back her up.

Anyway, outside the post office, I stopped her friend, even though I didn't know her very well and seldom talked to her, and said, “I just have to ask you a question: Which way should toilet paper be hung on the roller?”

“Over the top,” she said.

I needed more clarification, so I asked whether that was her way of hanging the paper or that of Mrs. Griz. She was quite insistent that it was the only right way to hang it and that it was the way she always hung it, contrary to the way my wife used to hang it.

Armed with the indisputable evidence of three witnesses, two of whom had been suggested by the accused herself, I just couldn’t wait to confront Mrs. Griz and prove her wrong.

But when I did, she just told me, “I can hang the toilet paper any way I want and the important thing, which you need to remember, is to leave some hanging there for me when you leave!”

Now, I’ve been wondering whether she ever made a big deal about the proper way to hang toilet paper in the first place. Could I have dreamed up the whole thing? Or is she just playing mind games on me to make me think I’m losing it quicker than I really am?

Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be reached by email at [email protected].